We’re going to explore the intersection of MF and other topics of interest.
First I’d like to point out that the Chief’s Letter is for this year. And what did he actually say?
There may be very limited opportunities for in-season prescribed fire or the use of natural ignitions to safely reduce future wildfires outlined in the Interagency Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations (Red Book). We will also use those procedures in Preparedness Level 3. If those opportunities exist, they should be well understood by partners and key stakeholders through open, collaborative preseason and ongoing dialogue, as well as risk shared with both regional foresters and the national headquarters.
This doesn’t sound like the 10 AM rule; it sounds like “let’s be particularly careful.” Why would he say that this year?
I. What’s Different About this Year- Resources
We have all read about losing possibly 75% of red-carded folks. But then those people were hired back. Then there are folks with more time in who may have voluntarily retired. But they could be hired back (Chris French talked about getting approval to hire folks back while they are on pre-retirement Admin leave.) So we don’t know (I’m sure there are people who are working who do know, but as a group we don’t now) how well set-up personnel resources are this year, or later in the year when some are traditionally let go. And of course, suppression depends on them. What about contracts? Theoretically those are not held up (emergency) but again, we do not know. The people who do know probably aren’t talking. Then next year, folks could be transitioning to the proposed Wildfire Service (I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but if it does, it would also be a good argument for increased caution).
Managed fires require people around to monitor them and get after them if they take off. Those same people could be helping out on other fires. If folks are watching a fire and it starts to take off, other people and resources are needed which wouldn’t have been needed if it had been suppressed if/when there was an opportunity. There are only so many people and resources to go around..ergo the Chief’s letter.
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Intersections Not Unique to This Year
2. Unpredictable and Extreme Fire Behavior. You might call this Wildfire-a-Geddon. We have all read that “climate change is making fires more frequent and intense”, but we can see a pattern of a) increasing human caused ignitions at bad times of the year, b) past fire suppression has led to fuel accumulation and c) climate has changed. Whatever the reason, if wildfire are exhibiting unpredictable and extreme behavior, and we intend to manage them at least in part by predicting their unpredictable behavior, there is a tension, at least in the verbiage. Perhaps not in the actual practice.
3. Climate Change. This could go either way.. “climate is making fire conditions worse, so put everything out right away while you still can.” Or “climate change makes the need for landscape scale fuel treatments essential, the only way to go is MF.”
4. New Technology. If you have been following detection and suppression technology, it’s becoming clear that we’ll be able to hop on fires quickly. So choices will have to be made about MF sooner- or it might be easier to just put it out. At the same time, these capabilities may enable better control of MF. We’ll have to see how these technologies change the landscape, but they are out there.
5. Smoke. Since the advent of climate change funding, researchers have figured out that wildfire smoke is bad for you. If we are looking at MF vs. PF, MF tends to go on for weeks or months, so would probably lose out. However, the stories from the Coconino suggest that communities may tolerate it up to a point and MF can be backed off when local folks have reached their maximum tolerance point. Of course, this is location and wind direction dependent.
6.Fire Retardant Use. I have heard that more retardant is used on MF. I don’t know if this means just because the sum of MF and Full Suppression Fires is larger than just FSFs. I don’t even know whether it’s true. Or like everything else it may vary by locality and whether MFs ultimately escape. It’s possible that some TSW folks heavily into this space may know more.
7. Targets for MF Possibly Leading to Risk-Taking by Employees?. The discussion around Timber increases in targets with fewer employees is thought by some that corners will be cut. It seems to me that the same case could be made for making MF a way of achieving fuels targets, since the employees may well be some of the same folks. I haven’t talked about the explanations of the FS’s proposed outcome-based measures, but this seems to be a good time to introduce an excellent answer to my question that I received from the WO Press Office:
1. Do “natural disturbances” on slide 12 include WFU/managed wildfire? What else is included?For the outcome performance work, we’re using anything that can cause a landscape-scale change to vegetation and fuels that would affect fire behavior in future wildfires. Our FY23 outcome-based performance metrics consider treatments and disturbances across Wildfire Crisis Strategy landscapes that change the arrangement of fuels.
There are five categories of treatments included in outcome-based performance calculations:
1) mechanical treatments;
2) prescribed fire;
3) wildfire that met hazardous fuel treatment criteria;
4) all other wildfires; and
5) other natural disturbances (e.g., insects, windthrow, etc.).
All treatments and disturbances are considered “treatments” for the purposes of the outcome-based performance metrics shared during the webinar. FY24 outcome-based performance metrics will consider all of the above as treatments with the exception of (5) other natural disturbances which will not be included. We have learned that insect and disease doesn’t really capture vegetation change in the right way for this analysis.
I had hoped that this particular idea would not survive the new Admin, but if I understand this correctly, the FS was planning to use “outcome-based performance measures” based on treatments influencing vegetation, including all wildfires. In discussions with fire folks of the “why don’t management teams take more risks with MF?” persuasion, I pointed out that the risks of things going awry might be problematic for their careers, but the real risk is to others’ lives and property. It seems to me that aligning goals between employees and locals is key to developing social license. And it sounds like that that’s what the Coconino has done. But as folks say “trust is hard to gain but easy to lose.” Any organizational structure which oversees MF, in my view, needs to explicitly consider that.
6) NEPA. I am agnostic as to what form this should take for MF. My suggestion was to put plan revisions on hold until Forests could develop a wildfire amendment including MF and approval of POD establishment and maintenance. And What NEPA best fits “opportunistic firing operations for fuel treatment”? I’m not sure it qualifies as an emergency in the traditional sense. Should active and passive MF require the same NEPA approach?
Do you have other intersections or concerns? What do you think about these?